While the move is somewhat surprising — he signed a three-year, $3.3 million deal with the Oilers in 2011 — the move is a byproduct of Edmonton suddenly having too much toughness in the lineup with Mike Brown, Steve MacIntyre and Luke Gazdic.

In Florida, the Panthers put veteran netminder Scott Clemmensen on waivers as well.

Clemmensen, 36, suffered a knee injury at the start of training camp and has been shelved since undergoing a procedure to fix the issue. That opened the door for Florida to sign Tim Thomas — he’s subsequently moved into the No. 1 gig — leaving Jacob Markstrom as the backup and Clemmensen looking for work.

In other waiver news, the Devils put 22-year-old defenseman Alex Urbom on the wire. Urbom has 14 games of NHL experience.

Eager isn’t surprising, neither is Clemmensen after the Thomas signing (and his play last year), but Urbom is a little. I guess NJ is just up against the roster limit and are forced into it to get Elias off of IR, and he hasn’t progressed much beyond his physical, defensive game, but he’s only 22 and could still be a good depth defenceman.